The Pirate Planet
was written by James Goss, based on the television story of the same name by
Douglas Adams. It was the 167th
story to be novelized by BBC Books.
When James Goss adapted City of Death he had
the original scripts and television story to base the novelization on, but for The
Pirate Planet there was substantially more material. The Pirate Planet begun life as The
Perfect Planet and in the original storyline, several drafts, and notes
that Goss had available were also added material on Adams’ thoughts on the Key
to Time and the idea of a Time Lord assistant. This novelization is not really a novelization
of the television story, but an amalgamation of as much material as Goss can fit
in and while it shouldn’t work, through the sheer charm of Douglas Adams’ style
and wit it does. It also helps that in
putting it in a book, there is the opportunity taken to restore some of the elements
which had to be cut for simple budgetary reasons. As The Pirate Planet follows the plot of
the television serial with several expansions, the ending in particular gets
expanded to include more special effects as well as added torture sequences of
the Doctor and Romana early on. The
climax still involves a spanner in the works, but a lot of the explosions after
it and the plot with the Captain and Xanxia don’t just fall apart in the end,
there is a final confrontation between the Xanxias to actually kill them off,
and the Doctor and Romana nearly destroy the TARDIS in the process. These additions could not have been done on
television without going overbudget or just presenting an impossible scenario.
There is also a sequence where the Doctor and Romana have
to face their fears as a torture, the Doctor having to face a Dalek and Romana having
to face the existential concept of failure.
This torture sequence is perhaps the most humorous making it such a shame
that it was lost on television, as the Doctor and Romana have the chance to
form a bond. The Doctor and Romana’s
bond while established in Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation, is
expanded on, partially by Adams, partially as a Goss original, but all of it
fits into how Mary Tamm played the role on television. Romana is young and doesn’t quite know what
to make of the Doctor, this being established as their second adventure, and
she decides that she should be attempting to do what he would do in a situation. This makes her slightly more proactive on
television and able to predict that the Doctor will get himself to walk the
plank, which she uses to pilot the TARDIS (by the book) to save him.
There is also an expansion of the Mentiads, here going
by the original name and idea of the Mourners.
Making them the Mourners helps bring to the forefront the themes Adams
had been writing with The Pirate Planet, it’s all about responsibility,
guilt, and their place in society. Zanak
is a planet where those who attempt to address the guilt of the planet killing other
planets are made outcasts, forced to mourn the loss of other planets and people
they will never know. Balaton, the
elderly man who on television disappears, is expanded here to represent those
who put up blinders to the responsibility of their sins while Pralix and the
Mourners take on the responsibility of attempting to make things right. There is also the added element of the
problems of society having a tendency to snowball out of control with time as
the time dams around Old Queen Xanxia are failing due to increased power as more
and more planets are eaten and destroyed.
Overall, while the other two Douglas Adams novelizations
worked on a level to expand upon their television counterparts, The Pirate
Plaent is one which provides an entirely new experience. There are several added plot points and depths
of character to expand the novel into over 400 pages and the subtle themes of
the television story are brought to the forefront as the almost anarchist nature
of the story bubbles over here. Goss
brings Adams’ style to life and makes it a must read for not only Doctor Who
fans, but also fans of Douglas Adams and science fiction in general. 10/10.
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